Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope

Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope
Mayall on March 2, 1973 viewing through the telescope to be named in his honor.
Organization	NOAO
Coordinates	31°57′48″N 111°36′01″W / 31.9634°N 111.6003°W / 31.9634; -111.6003Coordinates: 31°57′48″N 111°36′01″W / 31.9634°N 111.6003°W / 31.9634; -111.6003
Altitude	2120 m
Wavelength	optical
Built	Completed 1973
Telescope style	reflector
Collecting area	11.4m2
Website	The Mayall 4-Meter Telescope

The Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope (also known as the Mayall 4m Telescope) is a four meter reflector telescope located at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and named after Nicholas U. Mayall. It saw first light on February 27, 1973.^[1] Initial observers included: D. Crawford, Nicholas Mayall, and Arthur Hoag.^[1] It was dedicated on June 20, 1973 after Mayall's retirement as director.^[1] The mirror has an f/2.7 hyperboloidal shape. It is made from a two feet (61 cm (24 in)) thick fused quartz disk that is supported in an advanced-design mirror cell. The prime focus has a field of view six times larger than that of the Hale reflector. An identical reflector was later built at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, in Chile.^[2]

Contemporaries on commissioning

The Mayall (4 m) debuted neatly between the Hale (5 m) and Shane (3m) in the early 1970s.

Largest telescopes 1973:

#	Name / Observatory	Image	Aperture	Altitude	First Light	Special advocate
1	Hale Telescope Palomar Obs.		200 inch 508 cm	1713 m (5620 ft)	1949	George Ellery Hale
2	Mayall Telescope Kitt Peak National Obs.		158 inch 401 cm	2120 m (6955 ft)	1973	Nicholas Mayall
3	Shane Telescope Lick Observatory		120 inch 305 cm	1283 m (4209 ft)	1959	Nicholas Mayall C. Donald Shane
4	Harlan J. Smith Telescope McDonald Observatory		107 in 270 cm	2070 m (6791 ft)	1968	Harlan J. Smith

Outside the telescope enclosure

See also

• List of observatories
• List of largest optical reflecting telescopes

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Lindsley, Dave; Edmondson, Frank; Kiani, Shiva (2008), Celebrating 50 years; Kitt Peak National Observatory; Milestones at Kitt Peak, http://www.noao.edu/kp50/files/Timeline.pdf 
2. ^ Robert D. Chapman, William M. Sinton. "Telescope". AccessScience@McGraw-Hill. doi:10.1036/1097-8542.681600. http://www.accessscience.com/content.aspx?searchStr=Mayall&id=681600. 

External links

• The Mayall 4m Telescope - official site.